The Jayhawks (16-4 SU, 11-9 ATS) are pouring in a Big 12-high 84.9 points per game in league play while shooting 54.4 percent from the field. After nailing 10 of 22 3-pointers in a win over Iowa State on Wednesday, Kansas is hitting 41.7 percent from deep in conference play.

“When the ball moves,” coach Bill Self told the Kansas City Star, “and it doesn’t stick, and we get rotation, we are getting where we’re fairly hard to guard.”

“The chemistry is the biggest difference, there is no doubt,” coach Rick Barnes told the Austin American-Statesman. “Guys have improved from a team standpoint, and the coaching staff, we’ve got a lot of good guys and everybody cares about each other.

“And we don’t have any one guy that is selfish. That’s the difference.”

Sophomore center Cam Ridley earned Big 12 player of the week honors after his 14-rebound performance against Baylor. He’s averaging 12 points and eight boards in league play.

Trends to note: The UNDER is 4-0 in the last four meetings. … The UNDER is 21-7-2 in Kansas’ last 30 road games. … The home team is 4-1 ATS in the last five meetings. … Kansas is 18-7-1 ATS in their last 26 games against Big 12 foes. … Texas is 3-8-1 ATS in its last 12 Saturday games.

Syracuse (20-0 SU, 13-3) is on a 6-0 ATS run entering Saturday’s showdown with Duke (17-4, 13-8 ATS) at the Carrier Dome. The Blue Devils also are cashing tickets, having covered the last four games of their five-game win streak.

A crowd of 35,000 is expected for these teams’ first meeting since 1998.

The Blue Devils are shooting 41.4 percent on 3-pointers and have made 194 treys, sixth-most in the country. They average 81.5 points. And they’ve been off since Monday, giving them extra time to prepare for Syracuse’s zone.

The Orange hold opponents to 57.8 points per game, 40.8 percent shooting overall and 33.2 percent from beyond the arc. Duke’s defense is nothing to sneeze at, either. In the last five games, the Blue Devils have held opponents to 42.4 percent shooting while forcing 13.4 turnovers per game.

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim, whose team had two fewer days to prepare, said Duke is playing better than anyone in the ACC.

"Pittsburgh's the best team we've played this year,'' Boeheim said, per the Syracuse Post-Standard. "We played our best game of the year against Pittsburgh at home and we had to make a couple unbelievable plays, defensively and offensively, to sneak out the win. Pittsburgh's a very difficult place to play and (Duke) went in there and made it look easy.

"Duke's a tremendous team,'' he added. "They're playing now at the highest level of anybody in our league right now. If we had gone to Pittsburgh and played as good as we did, we would've never won the game. Duke's a tremendous challenge for us. The rankings don't really matter. It's how they're playing and how we're playing and they're playing great basketball right now.''

Trends to note: The UNDER is 7-1 in Syracuse’s last eight games. … The Orange are 6-1-1 ATS in their last eight home games. … Duke is 7-3 ATS in its last 10 games against teams with .600 or better winning percentages. … The OVER is 17-8 in Duke’s last 25 Saturday games.

Top-ranked Arizona (21-0 SU, 13-7 ATS) tries to break an 0-3 ATS skid when it visits California (14-7 SU, 10-10 ATS) at Haas Pavilion in Berkeley. The Wildcats have struggled in this series, including a 77-69 home loss last season and a 1-3-1 ATS record in the last five meetings.

The Wildcats stayed undefeated by holding Stanford to one field goal over its last 16 possessions Wednesday in a 60-57 win.

"We're an outstanding defensive team,” coach Sean Miller told reporters. "It isn't as if we changed any scheme; we just buckled down and had a lot of players playing very hard, and our ability to hold them to what we did is a big reason we won. … No question we have to execute better on offense and we have to be more confident at the line."

Arizona shot 18 of 29 from the foul line and was outrebounded for the third time this season.

While the Wildcats haven’t been dominant lately, Cal is on an 0-3 SU and ATS skid after losing at home in overtime 89-78 to Arizona State on Wednesday. It was the Golden Bears’ first loss in 11 home games this season.

Trends to note: Arizona is 5-1 ATS in its last six road games. … Arizona is 14-5 ATS in its last 19 games against winning teams. … Cal is 11-5 ATS in its last 16 games against teams with .600 or better winning percentages. … The OVER is 17-3 in Arizona’s last 20 games against winning teams. … The OVER is 9-2 in the last 11 meetings at Cal. … The underdog is 3-0-1 ATS in the last four meetings.